Chapter One Begins

    How much steam could a radiator give off? Would she be stranded here until she made newspaper headlines? HOPE FADES FOR COLONEL HOWISON'S DAUGHTER. SOCIETY FRIENDS WAIT AND PRAY. She watched a bee fly into the woods. At some point, tragically, FOUND TOO LATE.
    No human sound. Only birds calling, a bee buzzing past her, the hiss of steam. Another bee. Cecilia sat up. Her brother had once told her that bees travel in straight lines only to water. Water would mean PLUCKY MODERN GIRL RESCUES SELF. And I, thought Cecilia, stripping off her driving gloves, am a very modern girl.
    She perched on the Buick's sidemount, empty Thermos in hand, waiting. A bee shot by like a bullet. She was after it up the steep verge into the trees, along an animal track that threaded its way below the towering oaks and yellow birch, her hope and attention fixed on the bees zipping past. Ahead, a bright wink—sunlight on water? Yes. Tom was always right. Now she heard it trickling and quickened her pace, but she stopped abruptly as she stepped out of the woods. Someone was sprawled by the creek, asleep in the meadow flowers.

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    Barefoot, in nothing but overalls, a wide-brimmed hat fallen aside, but here was no country boy. Cecilia drifted across the meadow, breath high in her throat. Who is this? A local farm girl, long, ragged, rake-thin, and half-buried in the meadow-grass. Cecilia saw fox-colored hair, a nose and chin scorching in the sun, one cheekbone fully burned, and a shoulder crisply red. As she moved to cast a merciful shadow, a tanned fore-arm came into view, the glimpse of white ribs. What had made this sleeping Artemis too tired to feel the sun burning every exposed inch or a stranger standing over her?
    Then the girl did, awake and scudding back, knees up, arms hard across the bib of her overalls, scowling.
    "I'm sorry, I've startled you," said Cecilia. "I'm looking for water for my car's radiator. Is this stream clean enough? I don't want to turn an innocent Buick into a mud-filled monument to stupidity."
    The girl said something unfriendly in a crow voice that forced Cecilia to tune her ear to mountain speech to understand: "You might find a monument handy." At Cecilia's raised eyebrows, "You could sell folks tickets to see it, save up the money, buy yourself a car that works."
    "Tickets? To whom, on that infernal road? I wouldn't earn enough for shoe-leather."
    "You're the one who drove it. Nobody else does."
    "I've learned that lesson at bitter length. I need cooling down and—" her own pointed glance at the girl's sunburn—"so do you."
    "I ain't dressed for company."
    "I don't mind a bit," Cecilia said truthfully. "You are better dressed for wading, if you would?" The girl hesitated; Cecilia offered her the Thermos as she turned to face a cluster of blue-eyed grass. "While I admire those."
    Behind her, the sounds of girl rising, sloshing in the creek, a dunk, approaching drips.
    "Please, you first."
    "It's your bottle."
    "I insist." Cecilia remained resolutely turned. She watched the girl's shadow drink and drink and wipe its mouth.
    "I'm obliged. I was dry as meat on a spit. Looking like it, too, at least up one side."
    "Have more."
    "I'm full done. And done talking to the hind end of your hat."
    Cecilia turned at once, but the girl was already stooping again to the creek. Cecilia looked at that lean, bare back and thought I'm in trouble. And knew if she accepted the Thermos while on her feet, she would have to walk away. She dropped at once to the grass and was arranging herself to appear comfortably settled when the girl straightened and looked down with surly admiration. "You staying?"
    "I thought we could get acquainted."
    "Why for?"
    Because I need to know who you are. "Because it appears you're the only other human being on the mountain." Cecilia took her Thermos and sipped. "You might even pay a penny to see a car."

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